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By Michael Walker
What you strive for: Wayne Rooney cannot be considered alongside Sir Bobby Charlton, who made his England debut aged 20, until he wins the World CupIn his soulful autobiography, Sir Bobby Charlton thinks back to when he was on the brink of winning his first cap for England. It was April 1958, two months after the Munich air disaster.
Charlton was 20, three years older than Wayne Rooney when Rooney made his confident England debut. Charlton was a fresh England hope, particularly as Duncan Edwards had been lost at Munich. But it was not a status with which Charlton was comfortable.
‘I looked at the newspapers and saw those flattering headlines,’ he said. ‘But when I looked in the mirror I saw just a boy and one who feared he might be stretched beyond his limits.
‘Headlines such as “Bobby Dazzler” filled me with more apprehension than pleasure.’
The author Gordon Burn once described Charlton’s face as holding ‘the colour of worry’.
Rooney possesses the same northern paleness as Charlton but though Rooney is only potentially great and Charlton actually so — and a World Cup winner to boot — it feels as if it is the younger man at ease with himself.
When Rooney looks in the mirror he sees someone nicknamed Shrek and Ugly Arse by his mates. It is fine by him. What he also sees is a ferocious natural talent. In that Croxteth-engineered mental desktop there is no app for apprehension.
Fearlessness, the apparent inability to feel nerves, is one of Rooney’s breathtaking qualities. He does so in the main without seeming arrogant.
As Steven Gerrard has said: ‘What I love about Rooney is, however big the occasion, he’s relaxed.’
Jurgen Klinsmann’s recent five-word appraisal was: ‘Rooney can smell the ball.’
If Duncan Ferguson was his blue Everton hero, when Rooney ran out on to Liverpool’s streets to emulate players the first two he wanted to be were still Paul Gascoigne and Alan Shearer.
Rooney plays like a mix of the two. As he has demonstrated with Manchester United this season, it can be a potent cocktail: as tricky as Gascoigne, as lethal as Shearer.
Special blend: Rooney borrows the best bits of Paul Gascoigne and Alan ShearerThe similarity with the former meant that for Gazza, Wayne has become ‘Wazza’. Wazza has none of Gazza’s notorious neck-jerk nerves, however. More like Shearer, really.
It is just that when you talk to Shearer, he is a more rounded individual than has sometimes come across. Like Charlton, Shearer knew nerves.
Fourteen years before Rooney, Shearer was also an overnight teenage sensation. He also posted a landmark against Arsenal, a hat-trick on his debut for Southampton at The Dell. He was 17.
When Rooney scored his ‘remember the name’ goal against Arsenal he broke a record briefly held by Ipswich’s Darren Bent — who had just cut Michael Owen’s record — as the Premier League’s youngest scorer. When Shearer scored his top-flight hat-trick in 1988, he was breaking a record held by Jimmy Greaves since 1957.
So there was hullaballoo then, though as Shearer recalled: ‘The media intensity was not what it is now. Plus Southampton had a history of bringing young players through, Le Tissier, the Wallace brothers, they had been in the first team before me. The club knew how to handle that.
‘And Southampton is a different kind of town, it’s not like you’re doing it in a massive football city. But I was aware of the Jimmy Greaves record and it was a tremendous feeling.
'It helped that Southampton knew how to handle it and that I’d been there 18 months. It was all part of my growing up.
'Chris Nicholl, the Southampton manager, had me in cleaning boots the next morning. I understood why.’
It was nearly four years later, when Shearer was 21, that he made his England debut. To repeat, Rooney was 17 when he made his.
Scroll down to see Rooney's favourite goal from his impressive catalogue
Pick of the bunch: Rooney's wonder strike against Newcastle remains a personal favourite ‘Of course I was nervous,’ Shearer said. ‘I was still at Southampton. I wasn’t used to that sort of stage. I’d played against some of the England players in the old Division One but I didn’t know them.
'I remember meeting up and shaking hands with people. I felt better after that.
‘Rooney has dealt with this magnificently. He takes it all in his stride. He’s a natural. It shows how he’s been brought up and brought through.
‘That goal against Arsenal signalled the arrival of a major talent. When he scored that volley against Newcastle at Old Trafford I was stood right behind it. Anyone can do that once. Only special players do it time and again, which Rooney does.’
That blistering volley for Manchester United against Newcastle at Old Trafford remains Rooney’s favourite goal. It came in April 2005 when Rooney was 19. It came eight months into his first season, not at Everton, not in Liverpool.
It cost United £30million to take Rooney away from Goodison Park, £30m and a lot of hassle. Rooney felt his relationship with Everton manager David Moyes was damaged beyond repair and was incensed by Everton’s alleged £50m price tag. It was a fee United would not meet.
Rooney said that Everton hinted at interest from Chelsea and Liverpool. But it was Newcastle who submitted a bid.
There was disbelief on Tyneside that Rooney would go to St James’ Park and, sure enough, Manchester United matched the £20m offer shortly after.
By August 30, 2004, the price had risen to £30m. Rooney’s house in Formby — he and Coleen had departed Croxteth — was daubed with ‘Judas’ when the transfer was confirmed. He received death threats, as did his agent, Paul Stretford.
Then there was the story of Rooney’s other backstreet activities, which had just broken.
Backlash: Rooney's deflection from Everton to Manchester United was met by an outpouring of hate from Toffees fansAs he admitted: ‘Yes, I had been to a brothel, a massage parlour, call it anything you like, when I was 16. I’m not saying it’s OK to do it, or it’s justified, it’s just what lots of lads have always done.’
It was all over the papers and in Rooney and Coleen’s faces. And he was injured.
‘It was a terrible six weeks,’ he said.
Rooney’s injury was caused on England duty — at Euro 2004. At 17 years and 111 days he had become England’s youngest international, breaking a record set in 1879.
Sven Goran Eriksson selected Rooney for a friendly against Australia at Upton Park in February 2003, when he went on at half-time for Kieron Dyer. Francis Jeffers, from the same De la Salle school in Croxteth as Rooney, also made his debut and scored. Jeffers was at Arsenal then; he joined Northampton last week.
Less than two months later, the Swedish manager felt emboldened to unleash Rooney from the start in a pivotal qualifier for Euro 2004 against Turkey at the Stadium of Light.
Stirring it up: Rooney was a star on the infamous night on which England beat Turkey 2-0Nine months earlier, Turkey had finished third in the World Cup but Rooney looked in the mirror, then played like a whirlwind. England won 2-0.
Before that, the squad had an insight into the 17-year-old’s ability, as Gerrard has explained in his book: ‘One day in training Rooney announced to the whole England squad the massive size of his talent.
‘We were playing a practice match towards the end of training when Rooney picked up the ball, dribbled past a few players and chipped David James. Astonishing. Silence reigned for a split-second, as if everyone was trying to take in exactly what we had just seen.
'Then we all burst into applause, even established stars like Becks and Owen. Only 17, and already heading for greatness.’
When, six months later, England went to Istanbul for the return qualifier, Rooney was cemented in the team. That had dual benefits, as Gerrard noted.
‘At half-time it all kicked off in the tunnel. There was shouting, spitting, pushing and kicking. Alpay, the Aston Villa centre half, was right in the thick of it. Someone spat at Ashley Cole. By the time I got there, Rooney was sorting out a few Turks.’
Once asked to describe himself in three words, Rooney answered: ‘Romantic, funny, hard.’ Alpay is still waiting on the jokes and flowers.
Five weeks earlier, still 17, Rooney scored his first England goal in another qualifier against Macedonia in Skopje. He had again re-written the youngest-ever record book.
When he got to Portugal for the finals of Euro 2004, he did it again, becoming the youngest scorer in the European Championship finals.
Having been substituted by the time France staged that unforgettable last-minute comeback against England in the opening group game, Rooney got two against Switzerland. He scored two more against Croatia. Roo-mania was again in full swing.
Then came the hosts and though England went ahead through Owen, Rooney suffered the curse of the metatarsal. England crashed out on penalties. Rooney watched it all unfold, helpless in a Lisbon hospital.
Bang go out hopes: England were knockout of Euro 2004 after losing on penalties to Portugal. Rooney had limped off METERThat summer was the one when Rooney left Everton. His youth team T-shirt ‘Once a Blue, always a Blue’ means that Liverpool fans still sing ‘Once a Blue, always a Manc.’
But Rooney settled in immediately, upsetting more Turks by scoring a hat-trick on his United debut against Fenerbahce.
But that first season ended without a trophy and in the next United were out of Europe by Christmas. Rooney lost his cool at Villarreal and was sent off. He was earning a reputation.
Still, there was the 2006 World Cup in Germany. Then in April at Chelsea Rooney suffered another metatarsal fracture. This led to the will-he, won’t-he saga prior to Germany. He did make it, though not for the opening two matches.
By the time England reached the last eight, Michael Owen was home injured and Rooney was asked by Eriksson to play up front on his own against Portugal as he had done against Ecuador.
Then he stood on Ricardo Carvalho — which Rooney continues to argue was an accident — and was given a red card. At the end of the day, England lost again on penalties.
Rooney said he felt tears well up but, unlike many, he did not blame Cristiano Ronaldo, who had agitated for a card. Instead, Rooney texted him on the bus after the game and when he and Ronaldo went back to Old Trafford they won three consecutive Premier Leagues and two League Cups together.
Stamping his authority: To this day, Rooney stands by the statement that his stamp of Ricardo Carvalho was accidental They helped United re-take the European Cup in Moscow and when Ronaldo left for Real Madrid Rooney stepped up again. That is why he has just been voted double Footballer of the Year.
Describing Rooney’s development this season, Sir Alex Ferguson used the elegant phrase in The Observer: ‘It’s as if he’s walked in another door.’ Ferguson added: ‘He keeps telling me he’s centre back. Then a right back. Then he says, “Oh, and I can play midfield.”
'He’s a one-off in terms of the modern type of fragile player we’re getting today, cocooned by their agents, mothers and fathers, psychologists, welfare officers. Rooney’s a cut to the old days.
‘His attitude is, “Give me the ball, I’ll tell you how good I am.” He’s a throwback. I don’t think he has any inhibitions about that. He knows what he is. What we’re seeing now is a terror of a player.’
Given Rooney’s remarkable arrival in October 2002, former Arsenal defenders are also worth hearing and Martin Keown said: ‘I saw Nicolas Anelka as a 17-year-old at Arsenal and I’d never seen anything like it. The same with Patrick Vieira, I remember his first pass was pinged and it was like “Phwoof”.
‘It was interesting to hear Arsene Wenger say six or seven years ago that Rooney was the best young English talent he’d seen and that was before Rooney lifted the roof off.
‘He has that tigerish nature. You can see the work and you can see the talent.
Alongside him at United, Dimitar Berbatov has loads of skill and touch but that languid style of his means that he doesn’t satisfy our needs. Rooney leaves us satisfied.’
Leading man: The nation awaits the unleashing of a fully-fit Wayne Rooney at the World CupSatisfaction and World Cups: it has not been England’s for 44 years. That is a time-span to provoke mature consideration, even in someone born in 1985.
As Keown said, Rooney now appears a more responsible figure — in fact he has been sent off only once since the last World Cup, at Fulham last season.
There have been moments of late, though, when he is again like an imperfect storm of a player — ranting at team-mates during the first half of the Mexico friendly, lunging into tackles against Japan.
If he is sounding more mature, it needs to be proven again now in South Africa. It is the same with the claim of greatness. It must be done.
Rooney said recently: ‘If you want to be known and remembered in world football, I feel you would have to win a World Cup. Obviously there are players like George Best who are geniuses, but personally I feel I have to help England win a World Cup to be considered like that.’
That is the greatness Sir Bobby Charlton understands.
In the bookmakers two doors down from the Western Approaches pub in Croxteth, around the corner from Armill Road where it all began for Wayne Rooney, you can get odds of 9-1 on him being top scorer in South Africa.
Achieve that and the disappointed England line that leads back through Shearer, Gascoigne and too many more before reaching Charlton, Bobby Moore and the golden afternoon of 1966, might at last be at an end.
In a continent full of street footballers, the so-called last of England’s, could then be anointed great.
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